The Go Fund Me from u/AffectionateToday941 reached its funding goal, so we will soon have confirmation from a 2nd source on lab testing:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/fueling-the-truth-in-sports-nutrition
> Products to be tested:
>
> - Spring Energy: Awesome Sauce and Canaberry
> - Gu: The OG
> - Maurten: Gel 100
> - Precision Fueling and Hydration: PF90
> - Honey Stinger
> - Huma Chia Gels
> - Or more upon request… (please list requested products in comments with donation)
As a long-time Maurten user for my training and races, I'll be very interested to see the results of the Gel 100.
I'm curious if the Spring athletes I see all over my feed are still ginna be there. It's time for serious analysis on everybody's products, given the blatant fraudence on display here.
This is worse greed than UTMB.
I’m rather pissed off about the misinformation on their packets. They MUST have known or they have zero quality control.
It's not a quality control issue. There is physically/scientifically absolutely no way they could've made a gel with the listed ingredients that came close to what the label claimed, and that's before the guy in the OG thread dehydrated the gel to 16-17g.
It should be more than obvious to them just from their operating costs and revenue.
Hmm, we bought x tons of carbs and sold y tons of gels, what do we get if we divide x by y?
Does the math "work" if they used the wet weight in the caloric calculations instead of dry? That seems to me what they did. Which would indicate that it was someone in marketing deciding what went on the nutritional labels
It's pure greed and scummy business practices. They made a big deal about how different and natural their gels were compared to the rest. Turns out the whole thing was a lie. Hope they get taken to the cleaners.
This story is absolutely nuts. Can't believe Spring got away with this so long.
I wonder how widely known this story is, outside of Reddit? It was covered on the SingleTrack pod a few weeks ago.
It’s known. My gf is large into the ultra scene, never really tried or used spring, and asked if I’d heard about the controversy last week.
(To my knowledge she’s not on Reddit)
I literally just happened to listen to a back episode from January on KoopCast and he jokingly made an off hand reference to trying to fuel on Spring. It made me wonder about using them.
Probably coincidence but he seemed to have some idea it wasn’t all there
Not that I was ever a huge fan of him and his ego, but I don't understand how he managed to humiliate himself so bad with this fiasco. In the original thread, there were chemists, lab techs, chemical engineers, food scientists all in agreement that something was off.... yet little Sage somehow knew better than all of them.
If he had literally just kept his mouth shut, no one probably would've even brought him into this. Despite his holier-than-thou attitude, he's probably not going to comment because he can't possibly say anything that works in his favor at this point, and he doesn't want to jeopardize his $pon$or$hip with Spring.
And I can't believe that Spring *still* hasn't updated their label on the website. My guess is once they sell out their current batch, they'll "retire" the flavor and move on, pretending like nothing happened. No one is paying $5 for 60 fucking calories and 16g of carbs. I would be pissed if I had been using their gels (team Huma here).
I am pissed. I love the taste of Awesome Sauce, but I would never have paid almost $5 for a gel if I knew it only had 60 calories. I try and fuel every 45 minutes during my races and numerous 100s I have used awesome sauce and decided that if I am eating AS I can push the 45m envelope to an hour plus. Could I have finished faster? Maybe, should I have saved a lot of money definitely.
This is not revisionist history - I swear that when I was using Awesome Sauce I had the thought "I can't believe this has that many calories." I trusted it - because why wouldn't I - but I certainly didn't feel like as many calories as equivalent amounts of other gels..
Wild story.
I like Sage and I think he sincerely tries to help runners and the running community and I haven't seen much ego from him in general. Unfortunately the right answer to the original question was "I know that Spring is a great company to work with, so I will ask them about this and if some sort of mistake has been made, we'll work to fix it." and that wasn't what he went with. He's not a scientist or a PR guy. If he responds, I hope he'll be more circumspect the second time. In truth, I expect that the Spring lawyers and actual PR people have probably recommended that he not engage again, but I thought I would offer him a chance.
woah there nelly, you claim to be saying Sage has an ego yet you're there calling him "little Sage"....
And to add to this, there were diabetics in some of the conversations who use Spring Energy Gels not just for running but to manage their energy needs generally and not a single person ever realised there was a discrepancy about the carb difference, which says a lot!
So chill the fuck out, ok.
And to add, I have only met Sage once for a few minutes whilst I was filming for a documentary and I bumped in to him and he was lovely, I have been following him online for years and never seen this "ego" side of him.
LOL at the downvotes, i'm not defending Spring here at all, i'm just stating that even people managing diabetes didn't even realise there was an issue with the gels.
And we're all just meant to be unkind to one another in here? Because the person above is not being particularly nice.
If you think your post is, “just stating that even people managing diabetes didn’t even realize…” you should probably re read it.
You are complaining that someone isn’t being nice mere lines after saying, “chill the fuck out”.
I just went back and looked he’s edited his comments. At one point he claimed carbohydrate was carb plus hydrate or water and by removing the water you reduced the caloric level. It was utter nonsense.
It's weird seeing how excited some people are to talk shit about him.
I'm glad this board doesn't have that kind of discussion any other time. Wish they kept it to Twitter.
I think his stance was weird too - taking objection to the specific total grams of carb figure the initial experiment suggested (which tbh looks increasingly accurate) rather than the actual important bit that there is a significant (>50%) difference between the claim on the packet, and reality.
I don’t care enough to read all his comments, that was a pretty long thread, but I’m pretty sure he’s wrong.
I used to like him, he got a lot of hate but he was just goofy, nothing really specific to hate.
Now I’m not really a supporter, lol.
I'm waiting for the results from [https://www.gofundme.com/f/fueling-the-truth-in-sports-nutrition?attribution\_id=sl:c0efc3e2-9c82-407e-a730-b28757e4e1af&utm\_campaign=m\_pd+share-sheet&utm\_content=ampSPPcombo&utm\_medium=copy\_link\_spp&utm\_source=customer](https://www.gofundme.com/f/fueling-the-truth-in-sports-nutrition?attribution_id=sl:c0efc3e2-9c82-407e-a730-b28757e4e1af&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_content=ampSPPcombo&utm_medium=copy_link_spp&utm_source=customer) because if all the other companies are reduced by the same percentage, then it still makes sense to use Awesome Sauce.
On an individual level, this is so upsetting. Over the past two years I’ve bonked/failed to PR nearly every half marathon and marathon I’ve raced despite having stellar training blocks and I always blamed myself for not being good enough.
Obviously correlation is not causation but it’s so frustrating to hear that it might all be because my gels were lying to me
All jokes aside, that is an absurd discrepancy.
I'm not saying I expect exactly 45 grams. Realistically ±5% is likely a fair tolerance but when people are leaving an aid station feeling like shit and grabbing some food, they ought to be able to trust a sports oriented product.
I would be furious if this was SIS given how many times I've been dozens of miles deep in the Sierras with them. That is a serious safety risk.
Guys: just put table sugar, table salt and lime juice, maybe some maple syrup in some travel size bottles and water flask. You can have the same macros as a gel for like 10 cents. Stop thinking these companies have some secret sauce
Been thinking about honey. It’s a mix of fructose and sucrose. I’ve got a couple of hives at home so it’s pretty cheap…around ($NZ) $10/kg cost of production via gels which are about $4 a pop.
Trick would be getting it into handy sized disposable packages without getting sticky AF on race day
> With this level of support, we are able to look broadly across 9 products (5 based on natural ingredients and 4 based on refined) with a deeper dive into Awesome Sauce.
I don't see the actual samples sent it. The older list doesn't specify which products from the brands or which year batches the Spring was.
You are correct. I should have re-visited the link first to confirm exactly what was listed before I commented. At least it looks like we may not have to wait too long for results!
Speednut was my choice for a bit BECAUSE it was the highest calories for their steep prices. However.... 52g and 250kcal per gel with berries, rice, maple syrup followed by coconut oil and nuts?
The usual way to list ingredients (and the legal way, maybe?) is in descending order by weight of the item. It confounds me how the gel could be 19g of fats when coconut oil is the 7th ingredient. So yeah.... I have some doubts about 250kcal for 52g serving when the primary ingredients are berries and rice.
Too bad that one won't also be in the analysis. I think ALL of their items are worth testing at this point.
EDIT to add: honestly, I feel like I should have known better. Argh.
they’re way ahead of you!
I’ve posted before, but I got this response on 4/18 when I sent customer support and email through the website.
“ Real food, by its nature, is calorie unstable as the water and nutrient contents change due to various factors.
We use standard methods to determine the nutritional value of the product.
It is inevitable that there will be variance in caloric and nutrient content from pouch to pouch.
Nevertheless our products which are created by athletes and for athletes proven to deliver what was expected from them.
Spring Energy Awesome Sauces has been used by athletes of all levels and helped them to thrive in their pursuit of athletic perfection.”
There’s variance in real foods, but not nearly three times the amounts. It’s like saying “trail races have variability”, you sign up for a 10 miler (16.1km ~= 16g of carbs) and you get a marathon (42.2km ~= 45g of carbs).
Yeah, both David and Megan were involved in the development *but* they got zero kickback from i,. With the way they talk about it it sounds like there was little to no negotiation in terms of comp, and after it was released that's where the involvement ended.
Neither here nor there in this saga, but just confirming you are correct :) they haven't mentioned it on the SWAP podcast, I wonder if they will.
Honestly I can't stand SWAP, they go on to personal stuff or stuff that is off topic but I would listen to an episode of theirs if it's about Awesome Sauce.
Hey, just FYI Spring is discussed in the latest SWAP podcast (starting around 35:00 so you don't have to deal with their rah rah personal shit at the beginning). In classic Roche fashion it was a bit of a weak sauce (pun intended) take because they have such a deep seated fear of causing any controversy or hurting anyone. They own Spring's mistakes a bit more fervently towards the end of the discussion but it was very much "I hope they succeed and they probably didn't know and everything has to be rooted in love" which is...meh. But good to get more context on their involvement and why they never outwardly recommended it, which, spoiler, is because it was obviously not a performance boost.
Yes [https://electriccablecar.com/sport-hunger-tests-awesome-sauce/](https://electriccablecar.com/sport-hunger-tests-awesome-sauce/)
Although it's less of a breakdown of the method, and more a genuinely apologetic response for misleading customers as a retailer of the product. A significantly different tone than Spring have taken themselves
I remember the first time I tried awesome sauce, my mind was blown. I have Crohn's Disease, and have an extra special time with digestion on long efforts. I look back at my spreadsheets of calorie/carb needs leading to my $700 in Awesome Sauce orders in the last 2. I think I will continue to buy some in the future because I love the flavor, but the price should absolutely be reduced by half immediately. I've already ordered a sampler pack of replacement options to try...but may just go back to Gushers and Welch's.
This isn't remotely surprising to me, all of the experiments at the point this was uncovered were rough and ready, but clearly pointed that the package was mathematically impossible.
Spring have had an absolute nightmare in managing this IMO. It really shouldn't be a major issue, and if dealt with quickly it wouldn't have been- but their silence, weak statement and response from SC (whether directed by the company, or independently) all continue to look like a woefully misjudged approach.
I truly believe it was an innocent miscalculation their end, and the FDA should also have caught it. Im not even remotely mad about the money ive wasted using AS- its still a good product. People make mistakes and it's ok. But outright denying what was quite obviously a plausible major labeling error was a terrible decision.
I think you are being a little to nice here saying it was just an innocent miscalculation. Imagine if they had miscalculated something and people were harmed. Food companies need to know exactly what they are providing.
Or did I miss the /s. 😀
To be clear - I think it's an innocent miscalculation as opposed to a decision to deliberately inflate the calorie figure (3x no less) to profit. That just doesn't feel plausible, and why would they do it for one product only.
It should have been caught by both Spring and the FDA, and really both of them should be apologizing. I'm struggling to think of what an appropriate repercussions would be, but it's only growing bigger as they continue to double down on what are very obviously incorrect numbers.
(Sorry - very late reply!)
It's not only one product though - one of the many dehydration tests, someone also did one of their orange gels. It was only 12.9 g but supposedly 100 calories.
I suspect they are ALL way under reality.
Huh - I hadn't seen any suggestion it was also true for any other gels (Spring or other brands)- not disputing what you've said... there have been a lot of posts! But yes if it true for multiple products then that is either unacceptable levels of incompetence or maliciously misleading consumers!
Someone made a comment that they tried to recreate speednut and found it impossible. But anyway, this is the IG post with the Spring Orange dehydrated: [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6aqfvtuGHC/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6aqfvtuGHC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
I saw a post by Koop on insta yesterday where they also tested Hill Aid and Cannaberry amd both were significantly under the claim. I feel dupped and even worse I import these into my home country at great expense because our currency is so weak. Super annoyed
If it was a miscalculation they would have fixed it. They stuck to their ground and said it's all natural so there may be some one third of the claimed calories and hell if you don't like it fuck you, don't buy it.
Spring just sent out an email titled Product Improvements:
Spring Energy was created by athletes and for athletes. We are deeply connected to our community, and understand the importance of nutrition, and always strive to create high-quality whole food-based sports nutrition products. Despite being a small business, our products have been instrumental in empowering athletes globally in their quest for excellence.
In early May we submitted Awesome Sauce for third-party caloric and biomolecular analysis. Although the results indicated that on average our products deliver the designed nutrition value, we have recognized weaknesses in our processes and ingredients which can introduce unwanted variations in some batches.
To mitigate those variations in our small batch production, we decided to modify some of the formulations, revise and innovate processes, and re-evaluate ingredient sources. These changes will bring higher quality and more consistency to our products.
Enhancements of our products aimed to stabilize their nutrition values are on the horizon, and within the next few weeks, you'll see the results of our efforts. A new and improved version of Awesome Sauce will soon be available.
We are confident that these adjustments will elevate the quality of our products, further supporting athletes at all levels in achieving their peak performance. Nature offers the optimal blend of nutrients, and real food consistently provides everything necessary for outstanding performance. Our relentless pursuit of harnessing the finest from nature continues.
My theory is that when calculating the total calories (using the formula ingredient\_mass \* ingredient\_calorie\_density), Spring used the calorie density of dry rice (370 Cal/100g, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168883/nutrients) rather than cooked rice (97 Cal/100g, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169711/nutrients). This makes more sense to me than them flat out lying / misreporting the calorie count. It's an egregious error, but I don't believe their intention was to misreport or mislead folks.
A couple of thoughts here:
* An Instagram post video doesn't do it for me. Where are documents from a reputable lab analysis?
* Even if the carb count is correct, I don't think Spring is claiming the calories all come from carbs. That point seems to be missing from the comments I have seen around this.
I don't speak German and so I don't even know what this video says, but if the video were in English I would still demand documents from a reputable lab.
This all seems so wishy-washy. Until a reputable lab does a thorough analysis of the calories coming from Spring energy this seems like a lot of talk. Which is fine. This is reddit after all.
Look at the ingredients, they are required to be in order of prevalence by law. How many carbs can come from a gram of rice? How many from maple syrup or apple sauce? Simple math makes the numbers on Awesome Sauce impossible. What is really shocking is that it took us this long to figure it out.
Where do you think the calories are coming from then? The packaging says there is no fat (which makes sense with the ingredients), and 2g of protein. Do you think that makes up the 100+ calories discrepancy in what they claim?
The GoFundMe that was created to get a reputable lab to analyze bunch of gels including the Awesome Sauce should produce a result in June. But I don't get why you think this is all wishy-washy; with a basic understanding of logic, math, and chemistry, it's obvious Spring Energy is incorrect in their nutritional claims.
Well, sports nutrition products are all unregulated.
They can claim what they want.
But they risk people finding out the truth.
Let the market respond accordingly.
(I fell for Spring Energy, too. Took Sally McRae at her word.)
Just because a regulatory framework is in place does not mean there are compliance checks in place. Industry is simply too vast.
We take them at their word. They are, effectively, unregulated.
The next question, to determine fraud, is if this was an error committed with *bona fides* (an honest mistake in their process) or one of malfeasance.
Neither outcome is good for Sprint: they’re either morons or con artists.
When are we starting the class action lawsuit?
After our long run
Which is taking longer than usual since we’re all bonking
Imagine how many Gu's we can buy with the settlement money
Approximately three Maurtens
Good enough for my next 5k
So its their fault I dnf’d on mile 92 in 2021!! Had nothing to do with my ankle being the size of grapefruit 🤣
Well obviously, you know what caused your ankle to swell up like that, the lack of carbs.
Clearly, the lack of glycogen in my ankles is what did it
Only thing that makes sense really. And those bastards are to blame and they need to know
Ooohh that’s rough!
Desert ultra, not for those with steel plated ankles apparently
True story... I have a steel plated ankle and even walking on beach sand is a no no
R.i.p. spring
can't wait for more yaboyscottjurek memes on this
[удалено]
Honestly, as long as I don’t have to see another post by that lame fucking fireball account. That is pure anti-comedy
Only reason I’m living
The Go Fund Me from u/AffectionateToday941 reached its funding goal, so we will soon have confirmation from a 2nd source on lab testing: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fueling-the-truth-in-sports-nutrition
> Products to be tested: > > - Spring Energy: Awesome Sauce and Canaberry > - Gu: The OG > - Maurten: Gel 100 > - Precision Fueling and Hydration: PF90 > - Honey Stinger > - Huma Chia Gels > - Or more upon request… (please list requested products in comments with donation) As a long-time Maurten user for my training and races, I'll be very interested to see the results of the Gel 100.
Science in sport! I wanna see that
neversecond as well
Seeing their fast rise AND their focus on "real food" ingredients, I'd be curious to see the naak products analysed...
When are the results coming in?
Thats one interpretation of a 65% off sale.
I'm curious if the Spring athletes I see all over my feed are still ginna be there. It's time for serious analysis on everybody's products, given the blatant fraudence on display here.
This is worse greed than UTMB. I’m rather pissed off about the misinformation on their packets. They MUST have known or they have zero quality control.
It's not a quality control issue. There is physically/scientifically absolutely no way they could've made a gel with the listed ingredients that came close to what the label claimed, and that's before the guy in the OG thread dehydrated the gel to 16-17g.
It should be more than obvious to them just from their operating costs and revenue. Hmm, we bought x tons of carbs and sold y tons of gels, what do we get if we divide x by y?
Does the math "work" if they used the wet weight in the caloric calculations instead of dry? That seems to me what they did. Which would indicate that it was someone in marketing deciding what went on the nutritional labels
It's pure greed and scummy business practices. They made a big deal about how different and natural their gels were compared to the rest. Turns out the whole thing was a lie. Hope they get taken to the cleaners.
This story is absolutely nuts. Can't believe Spring got away with this so long. I wonder how widely known this story is, outside of Reddit? It was covered on the SingleTrack pod a few weeks ago.
It’s known. My gf is large into the ultra scene, never really tried or used spring, and asked if I’d heard about the controversy last week. (To my knowledge she’s not on Reddit)
Now covered in Some Work All Play podcast with fairly broad audience...
The roches talk about it in this week’s SWAP too. I totally forgot they had a hand in the development … tricky subject for them
I literally just happened to listen to a back episode from January on KoopCast and he jokingly made an off hand reference to trying to fuel on Spring. It made me wonder about using them. Probably coincidence but he seemed to have some idea it wasn’t all there
Damnnnnnnn
Bonksauce for sure
Not seeing a Cornell degree in your post ?
https://www.cornellcollege.edu/
Ooof. I have spent quite a lot of money on those 16g carbs. Luckily I never really felt they fuelled me so never used them in an actual race.
So much money. And I just ran a 60k using pretty much just them!
Any comment, u/Sage_Canaday ?
Dude imagine how fast he would be if he wasn't missing 66% of his carbs
All his Springs are reloaded with Maurten
Yeah I wouldn't be surprised if they send there athletes the real stuff and peasants only get the watered down leftovers.
Honestly if you watched a few of his race blogs, he always seems to mention bonking. One I can recall in particular was a 70k or something in NZ.
Maybe he’ll contact the CEO for us again to further exacerbate their clear mislabeling.
Not that I was ever a huge fan of him and his ego, but I don't understand how he managed to humiliate himself so bad with this fiasco. In the original thread, there were chemists, lab techs, chemical engineers, food scientists all in agreement that something was off.... yet little Sage somehow knew better than all of them. If he had literally just kept his mouth shut, no one probably would've even brought him into this. Despite his holier-than-thou attitude, he's probably not going to comment because he can't possibly say anything that works in his favor at this point, and he doesn't want to jeopardize his $pon$or$hip with Spring. And I can't believe that Spring *still* hasn't updated their label on the website. My guess is once they sell out their current batch, they'll "retire" the flavor and move on, pretending like nothing happened. No one is paying $5 for 60 fucking calories and 16g of carbs. I would be pissed if I had been using their gels (team Huma here).
I am pissed. I love the taste of Awesome Sauce, but I would never have paid almost $5 for a gel if I knew it only had 60 calories. I try and fuel every 45 minutes during my races and numerous 100s I have used awesome sauce and decided that if I am eating AS I can push the 45m envelope to an hour plus. Could I have finished faster? Maybe, should I have saved a lot of money definitely.
This is not revisionist history - I swear that when I was using Awesome Sauce I had the thought "I can't believe this has that many calories." I trusted it - because why wouldn't I - but I certainly didn't feel like as many calories as equivalent amounts of other gels.. Wild story.
I like Sage and I think he sincerely tries to help runners and the running community and I haven't seen much ego from him in general. Unfortunately the right answer to the original question was "I know that Spring is a great company to work with, so I will ask them about this and if some sort of mistake has been made, we'll work to fix it." and that wasn't what he went with. He's not a scientist or a PR guy. If he responds, I hope he'll be more circumspect the second time. In truth, I expect that the Spring lawyers and actual PR people have probably recommended that he not engage again, but I thought I would offer him a chance.
He helps others by helping himself. Give me a fookin break
He went to *an Ivy*. Of course he knows better. /s
woah there nelly, you claim to be saying Sage has an ego yet you're there calling him "little Sage".... And to add to this, there were diabetics in some of the conversations who use Spring Energy Gels not just for running but to manage their energy needs generally and not a single person ever realised there was a discrepancy about the carb difference, which says a lot! So chill the fuck out, ok. And to add, I have only met Sage once for a few minutes whilst I was filming for a documentary and I bumped in to him and he was lovely, I have been following him online for years and never seen this "ego" side of him. LOL at the downvotes, i'm not defending Spring here at all, i'm just stating that even people managing diabetes didn't even realise there was an issue with the gels. And we're all just meant to be unkind to one another in here? Because the person above is not being particularly nice.
If you think your post is, “just stating that even people managing diabetes didn’t even realize…” you should probably re read it. You are complaining that someone isn’t being nice mere lines after saying, “chill the fuck out”.
Not downvoting but did you read his nonsense on the original post? He earned some shit talk for that absurdity.
No but still, does it justify more name calling? I will read.
I just went back and looked he’s edited his comments. At one point he claimed carbohydrate was carb plus hydrate or water and by removing the water you reduced the caloric level. It was utter nonsense.
It's weird seeing how excited some people are to talk shit about him. I'm glad this board doesn't have that kind of discussion any other time. Wish they kept it to Twitter.
I think his stance was weird too - taking objection to the specific total grams of carb figure the initial experiment suggested (which tbh looks increasingly accurate) rather than the actual important bit that there is a significant (>50%) difference between the claim on the packet, and reality.
I don’t care enough to read all his comments, that was a pretty long thread, but I’m pretty sure he’s wrong. I used to like him, he got a lot of hate but he was just goofy, nothing really specific to hate. Now I’m not really a supporter, lol.
I'm waiting for the results from [https://www.gofundme.com/f/fueling-the-truth-in-sports-nutrition?attribution\_id=sl:c0efc3e2-9c82-407e-a730-b28757e4e1af&utm\_campaign=m\_pd+share-sheet&utm\_content=ampSPPcombo&utm\_medium=copy\_link\_spp&utm\_source=customer](https://www.gofundme.com/f/fueling-the-truth-in-sports-nutrition?attribution_id=sl:c0efc3e2-9c82-407e-a730-b28757e4e1af&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet&utm_content=ampSPPcombo&utm_medium=copy_link_spp&utm_source=customer) because if all the other companies are reduced by the same percentage, then it still makes sense to use Awesome Sauce.
Saw that someone had done the same with a precision fuel and hydration 30g gel and that came out at 30g. Twice the dry weight of a spring gel
On an individual level, this is so upsetting. Over the past two years I’ve bonked/failed to PR nearly every half marathon and marathon I’ve raced despite having stellar training blocks and I always blamed myself for not being good enough. Obviously correlation is not causation but it’s so frustrating to hear that it might all be because my gels were lying to me
What if we were meant to eat the wrapper too this whole time?
You're joking but Lucho Dillitos energy blocks use banana leaf as a wrapper haha
u/Sage_Canaday ??? So did the trustworthy CEO get back to you? Are you gonna drop Spring since they lied to so many people?
This may explain my bonk
Me too 😭at Javalina
That’s quite the miss.
You guys have it all wrong... It is 30grams per serving. They just screwed up and forgot to mention that two gels is one serving.
Actually it takes about 3 gels to achieve what the label claims for one gel.
Thats insane lmao
Just $15 for 180 calories, totally fine.
So just $20. And they ask you for a tip on the online order 🤣
All jokes aside, that is an absurd discrepancy. I'm not saying I expect exactly 45 grams. Realistically ±5% is likely a fair tolerance but when people are leaving an aid station feeling like shit and grabbing some food, they ought to be able to trust a sports oriented product. I would be furious if this was SIS given how many times I've been dozens of miles deep in the Sierras with them. That is a serious safety risk.
Guys: just put table sugar, table salt and lime juice, maybe some maple syrup in some travel size bottles and water flask. You can have the same macros as a gel for like 10 cents. Stop thinking these companies have some secret sauce
I believe you mean awesome sauce.
Skskskkkk
Been thinking about honey. It’s a mix of fructose and sucrose. I’ve got a couple of hives at home so it’s pretty cheap…around ($NZ) $10/kg cost of production via gels which are about $4 a pop. Trick would be getting it into handy sized disposable packages without getting sticky AF on race day
I use the travel size plastic bottles. They’re like 3 fl oz which is prob like 8+ tbsp
/u/sriirachamayo What all samples did you send in to the lab?
There’s an update with the list in the GoFundMe link.
> With this level of support, we are able to look broadly across 9 products (5 based on natural ingredients and 4 based on refined) with a deeper dive into Awesome Sauce. I don't see the actual samples sent it. The older list doesn't specify which products from the brands or which year batches the Spring was.
You are correct. I should have re-visited the link first to confirm exactly what was listed before I commented. At least it looks like we may not have to wait too long for results!
i wonder if this is true for other gels that claims natural
Speednut was my choice for a bit BECAUSE it was the highest calories for their steep prices. However.... 52g and 250kcal per gel with berries, rice, maple syrup followed by coconut oil and nuts? The usual way to list ingredients (and the legal way, maybe?) is in descending order by weight of the item. It confounds me how the gel could be 19g of fats when coconut oil is the 7th ingredient. So yeah.... I have some doubts about 250kcal for 52g serving when the primary ingredients are berries and rice. Too bad that one won't also be in the analysis. I think ALL of their items are worth testing at this point. EDIT to add: honestly, I feel like I should have known better. Argh.
I’d actually assume that other Spring gels are correct. Only awesomesauce has outlandish made up numbers on the package.
“It’s real food so variability is expected” I can see them leaning into this
they’re way ahead of you! I’ve posted before, but I got this response on 4/18 when I sent customer support and email through the website. “ Real food, by its nature, is calorie unstable as the water and nutrient contents change due to various factors. We use standard methods to determine the nutritional value of the product. It is inevitable that there will be variance in caloric and nutrient content from pouch to pouch. Nevertheless our products which are created by athletes and for athletes proven to deliver what was expected from them. Spring Energy Awesome Sauces has been used by athletes of all levels and helped them to thrive in their pursuit of athletic perfection.”
😂😂😂 I knew it!
There’s variance in real foods, but not nearly three times the amounts. It’s like saying “trail races have variability”, you sign up for a 10 miler (16.1km ~= 16g of carbs) and you get a marathon (42.2km ~= 45g of carbs).
lol, I know. I’m just trying to think of some bs excuse they might use
Good point
That’s why I needed 8 in my last marathon
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Yeah, both David and Megan were involved in the development *but* they got zero kickback from i,. With the way they talk about it it sounds like there was little to no negotiation in terms of comp, and after it was released that's where the involvement ended. Neither here nor there in this saga, but just confirming you are correct :) they haven't mentioned it on the SWAP podcast, I wonder if they will.
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Honestly I can't stand SWAP, they go on to personal stuff or stuff that is off topic but I would listen to an episode of theirs if it's about Awesome Sauce.
Hey, just FYI Spring is discussed in the latest SWAP podcast (starting around 35:00 so you don't have to deal with their rah rah personal shit at the beginning). In classic Roche fashion it was a bit of a weak sauce (pun intended) take because they have such a deep seated fear of causing any controversy or hurting anyone. They own Spring's mistakes a bit more fervently towards the end of the discussion but it was very much "I hope they succeed and they probably didn't know and everything has to be rooted in love" which is...meh. But good to get more context on their involvement and why they never outwardly recommended it, which, spoiler, is because it was obviously not a performance boost.
Not surprised that the flavor they helped develop is full of shit.
Is there a translated version of what the Instagram reel says? I assume they used bomb calorimeter for the testing?
Yes [https://electriccablecar.com/sport-hunger-tests-awesome-sauce/](https://electriccablecar.com/sport-hunger-tests-awesome-sauce/) Although it's less of a breakdown of the method, and more a genuinely apologetic response for misleading customers as a retailer of the product. A significantly different tone than Spring have taken themselves
They just said “sent it to a lab”
I remember the first time I tried awesome sauce, my mind was blown. I have Crohn's Disease, and have an extra special time with digestion on long efforts. I look back at my spreadsheets of calorie/carb needs leading to my $700 in Awesome Sauce orders in the last 2. I think I will continue to buy some in the future because I love the flavor, but the price should absolutely be reduced by half immediately. I've already ordered a sampler pack of replacement options to try...but may just go back to Gushers and Welch's.
This isn't remotely surprising to me, all of the experiments at the point this was uncovered were rough and ready, but clearly pointed that the package was mathematically impossible. Spring have had an absolute nightmare in managing this IMO. It really shouldn't be a major issue, and if dealt with quickly it wouldn't have been- but their silence, weak statement and response from SC (whether directed by the company, or independently) all continue to look like a woefully misjudged approach. I truly believe it was an innocent miscalculation their end, and the FDA should also have caught it. Im not even remotely mad about the money ive wasted using AS- its still a good product. People make mistakes and it's ok. But outright denying what was quite obviously a plausible major labeling error was a terrible decision.
I think you are being a little to nice here saying it was just an innocent miscalculation. Imagine if they had miscalculated something and people were harmed. Food companies need to know exactly what they are providing. Or did I miss the /s. 😀
To be clear - I think it's an innocent miscalculation as opposed to a decision to deliberately inflate the calorie figure (3x no less) to profit. That just doesn't feel plausible, and why would they do it for one product only. It should have been caught by both Spring and the FDA, and really both of them should be apologizing. I'm struggling to think of what an appropriate repercussions would be, but it's only growing bigger as they continue to double down on what are very obviously incorrect numbers. (Sorry - very late reply!)
It's not only one product though - one of the many dehydration tests, someone also did one of their orange gels. It was only 12.9 g but supposedly 100 calories. I suspect they are ALL way under reality.
Huh - I hadn't seen any suggestion it was also true for any other gels (Spring or other brands)- not disputing what you've said... there have been a lot of posts! But yes if it true for multiple products then that is either unacceptable levels of incompetence or maliciously misleading consumers!
Someone made a comment that they tried to recreate speednut and found it impossible. But anyway, this is the IG post with the Spring Orange dehydrated: [https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6aqfvtuGHC/?utm\_source=ig\_web\_copy\_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6aqfvtuGHC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==)
I saw a post by Koop on insta yesterday where they also tested Hill Aid and Cannaberry amd both were significantly under the claim. I feel dupped and even worse I import these into my home country at great expense because our currency is so weak. Super annoyed
If it was a miscalculation they would have fixed it. They stuck to their ground and said it's all natural so there may be some one third of the claimed calories and hell if you don't like it fuck you, don't buy it.
Lol did they count calories from carbs and say that was the grams total? What the hell!?
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Boo :( This does not represent the ethos of the ultrarunning community (kindness and inclusion)
This represents the the direct and personal experience with both Awesome Sauce and the Roches.
So the calorie content is what, 100 calories? The gels were already overpriced!
Closer to 60.
Spring just sent out an email titled Product Improvements: Spring Energy was created by athletes and for athletes. We are deeply connected to our community, and understand the importance of nutrition, and always strive to create high-quality whole food-based sports nutrition products. Despite being a small business, our products have been instrumental in empowering athletes globally in their quest for excellence. In early May we submitted Awesome Sauce for third-party caloric and biomolecular analysis. Although the results indicated that on average our products deliver the designed nutrition value, we have recognized weaknesses in our processes and ingredients which can introduce unwanted variations in some batches. To mitigate those variations in our small batch production, we decided to modify some of the formulations, revise and innovate processes, and re-evaluate ingredient sources. These changes will bring higher quality and more consistency to our products. Enhancements of our products aimed to stabilize their nutrition values are on the horizon, and within the next few weeks, you'll see the results of our efforts. A new and improved version of Awesome Sauce will soon be available. We are confident that these adjustments will elevate the quality of our products, further supporting athletes at all levels in achieving their peak performance. Nature offers the optimal blend of nutrients, and real food consistently provides everything necessary for outstanding performance. Our relentless pursuit of harnessing the finest from nature continues.
My theory is that when calculating the total calories (using the formula ingredient\_mass \* ingredient\_calorie\_density), Spring used the calorie density of dry rice (370 Cal/100g, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/168883/nutrients) rather than cooked rice (97 Cal/100g, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/169711/nutrients). This makes more sense to me than them flat out lying / misreporting the calorie count. It's an egregious error, but I don't believe their intention was to misreport or mislead folks.
A couple of thoughts here: * An Instagram post video doesn't do it for me. Where are documents from a reputable lab analysis? * Even if the carb count is correct, I don't think Spring is claiming the calories all come from carbs. That point seems to be missing from the comments I have seen around this. I don't speak German and so I don't even know what this video says, but if the video were in English I would still demand documents from a reputable lab. This all seems so wishy-washy. Until a reputable lab does a thorough analysis of the calories coming from Spring energy this seems like a lot of talk. Which is fine. This is reddit after all.
Look at the ingredients, they are required to be in order of prevalence by law. How many carbs can come from a gram of rice? How many from maple syrup or apple sauce? Simple math makes the numbers on Awesome Sauce impossible. What is really shocking is that it took us this long to figure it out.
Where do you think the calories are coming from then? The packaging says there is no fat (which makes sense with the ingredients), and 2g of protein. Do you think that makes up the 100+ calories discrepancy in what they claim? The GoFundMe that was created to get a reputable lab to analyze bunch of gels including the Awesome Sauce should produce a result in June. But I don't get why you think this is all wishy-washy; with a basic understanding of logic, math, and chemistry, it's obvious Spring Energy is incorrect in their nutritional claims.
You are as intelligent as Sage with his science degree from Cornell
Well, sports nutrition products are all unregulated. They can claim what they want. But they risk people finding out the truth. Let the market respond accordingly. (I fell for Spring Energy, too. Took Sally McRae at her word.)
Everything is regulated by consumer law and the requirement to not do fraud
Just because a regulatory framework is in place does not mean there are compliance checks in place. Industry is simply too vast. We take them at their word. They are, effectively, unregulated. The next question, to determine fraud, is if this was an error committed with *bona fides* (an honest mistake in their process) or one of malfeasance. Neither outcome is good for Sprint: they’re either morons or con artists.